BP Inks Three Concession Agreements With Authorities In Egypt

Oil major BP plc (LON:BP) (NYSE:BP) recently announced that it has struck an accord with the Egyptian government for the amendment of three concessions in Egypt.

BP has secured amendments from the authorities for three concessions in Egypt – Temsah, Ras El Barr and Nile Delta Offshore. This will facilitate acceleration of output from the Nooros gas discovery after recording positive appraisal results from another find. Recently, BP achieved record production of 700 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) in the Nooros development.

With the conclusion of these amendments, BP can progress with the enhancement of its drilling activities in these concession areas. The amendments also allow fast track development of the Nooros field in the Nile Delta offshore concession and should allow the company to reach a production level of 800 mmscfd by early 2017. Additional wells are also expected to be drilled by BP in Ras El Barr and Temsah areas, which will likely bring substantial gas to the Egyptian domestic market.

BP has an interest of 50% in Temsah and Ras El Barr and holds 25% interest in the Nile Delta Offshore Concession. The remaining working interest is held by Eni SpA (TO:E) through its subsidiary IEOC.

BP plc made another important discovery in the Baltim South Development Lease in June. The company appraised this discovery with the Baltim South West 2X well that hit a gas column of 102 meters in total and 86 meters net, in two sand layers of messinian age with excellent reservoirs.

With the drilling of this new well, the gas potential of this Nooros Area has touched 3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas in place. Of this, about 2 tcf are in the Nooros field, while the remaining are in the new independent discovery of Baltim South West. Eni and its partner BP are already engaged in the development options for this new discovery.

BP currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked players from the energy sector are NGL Energy Partners LP (NYSE:NGL) and Evolution Petroleum Corp. (TO:E) . All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

NGL Energy Partners has a mixed earnings history. The partnership posted positive earnings surprise in two of the last four quarters. It reported a positive earnings surprise of 1480.0% in the preceding quarter.

In the last reported quarter, Evolution Petroleum Corp. delivered a positive earnings surprise of 350.00%. Coming to the earnings surprise history, the company beat estimates in two of the last four quarters.

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